The Aspirin Resistance Test as Part of Heart-Disease Screening

A great tool to tell you if aspirin therapy will help you prevent a heart attack or stroke

Pop an aspirin. Prevent clots. Save your life. This tried-and-true heart-health mantra has been around for as long as I can remember. Aspirin is a popular and inexpensive approach to help keep blood thin and prevent the clots that lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Aspirin’s appeal is its ability to block the formation of thromboxane A2. Thromboxane constricts blood vessels and allows platelets to clump together and form clots at the site of wounds. The thinking behind prescribing aspirin therapy for those at risk for heart disease is that if you reduce the amount of thromboxane produced, you reduce the odds of a blood clot forming and, subsequently, a heart attack or stroke.

Should Your Efforts to Prevent Heart Disease Include Aspirin Therapy?

Though doctors prescribe aspirin therapy for both primary and secondary heart attack prevention, we are always concerned about the threat of gastrointestinal bleeding. There is also much debate about the most effective minimum dosage. For example, does a patient need one low-dose aspirin (81 mg), two low-dose aspirins, or one full-dose aspirin (325 mg)? This confusion comes out of research suggesting that not all patients respond to aspirin in the same way. In fact, some patients don’t respond to aspirin at all. They’re called “aspirin-resistant.”

Take the Test

All of these challenges associated with aspirin therapy can be overcome with a new test called AspirinWorks. A simple urine sample can show your doctor whether aspirin therapy is effective for you. This test measures the level of 11-dehydrothromboxane B2, an end product of thromboxane metabolism. Go to http://www.aspirinworks.com to learn more about the test.

If your test results show a low level of thromboxane metabolites in your system, it means your prescribed aspirin therapy is working. If your results are higher up the scale, you would likely benefit from increasing your dosage. However, if you’re already taking the maximum dosage of aspirin, you’re probably aspirin-resistant. In that case, it’s best to talk to your doctor about stopping your daily aspirin regimen so as not to risk the gastrointestinal side effects. Though that may sound frightening, you need to keep in perspective that if you’re aspirin-resistant, that daily pill wasn’t doing you any good anyway.

More Dr. Sinatra Advice on Heart Disease Tests

What other heart disease tests should you consider? Get information on the array of heart disease tests I use when evaluating and treating my own patients.

Undergoing heart disease testing but unsure what your scores indicate? Get my Sinatra Smart Zone values for a wide array of heart health tests to ensure optimal heart health.

Want to read detailed questions and answers about different heart disease tests? Check out the Q&A section of my Heart Disease Tests Health Center.